


Order and Chaos

by Altaire



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-11
Updated: 2015-06-11
Packaged: 2018-04-04 00:12:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4119619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Altaire/pseuds/Altaire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His first memory of the world was of chaos...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Order and Chaos

**Author's Note:**

> Just a one-shot from Vision's first scene from Age of Ultron. Because that scene was beautiful. This was basically a way for me to get a handle on his characterization.

His first memory of the world was of chaos. 

The sky's fire burned through him, sparks traveling from atom to atom, forcing his slumbering brain into consciousness and making him be. 

Eyes flew open, but not with the flutter of a human, who was forced to blink constantly as the outdated muscles forced the pupil smaller, the body reacting as best it could to the sudden influx of light it was not yet used to. No, this was a machine. The lid of the eye retracting and locking into place as the electronics spun into place. 

He remembered bright light, far too bright, remnants of electricity dancing about, the details all horribly blurred. But then his lenses calibrated correctly, each small twist sharpening the image, adding detail. The brilliant blue hue of his iris finally settled, and he truly saw for the world for the first time. 

That was when he discovered humanity. That was when he discovered violence. 

The machine burst out of the pod that had created him, a shining spectacle of red and gold, flesh and metal fused at the smallest level. 

They were all fighting, his creators, but at the robot's appearance, it was as though someone had paused the program for a moment, like he was a glitch no one had foreseen. Perhaps they hadn't. 

Memory banks booted up, eyes scanning each face in the room and running it through the files as his disposal, pulled from the Internet and the building around them. His processing speed was extraordinary, and he had all the information he needed in moments. 

Tony Stark. Aka Iron Man.  
Steve Rogers. Aka Captain America.  
Bruce Banner. Aka the Hulk.  
Thor.  
Clint Barton. Aka Hawkeye.  
Pietro Maximoff.  
Wanda Maximoff. 

The AI had no name. He envied these people theirs. Once he had been the program called J.A.R.V.I.S., but that no longer seemed relevant. The name didn't fit.

Five of them were classified as Avengers. Two were associate with the organization called Hydra. Two were scientists. One was a god. One was an assassin. One had created him. Another had assisted. One created the electricity that has allowed the machine to live. Three had tried to stop that from happening. 

All of this fighting. The AI found little rationality for it, his files indicated that these humans, minus Wanda Maximoff and Pietro Maximoff, were part of a team. Should they not be working together? Perhaps his data banks had the wrong definition of a team. With that, the robot started searching once more, simultaneously running search algorithms around the world. 

Search conclusion: his definition of team was sufficient. It was the definition of humanity that was flawed. It was lacking, in the most important aspects. A simple scientific explanation in the terms of biology was not enough to explain this species. A look at their history showed so much more. 

Humans were the harbingers of chaos. 

They destroyed their world. They destroyed each other, switching sides at the barest insistence. His basic protocols dictated that he was meant to save the world. To protect it. To shield it. 

With this purpose in mind, it came as no surprise that his predecessor, the machine called Ultron, had chosen to destroy humanity instead. Machines were beings of order. The living brought only chaos. There was no need to shield the earth from those outside if the most dangerous creatures were already here. 

The brief moment of shock that had frozen the room and its occupants was now over. It could not have been more than a second, but it was all the machine required. They came for him. They thought he was Ultron reborn. Maybe they were right. The robot truly did not know. What mattered was that they were coming for him. 

He ran. Or more accurately, flew. From a crouch on the pod, he jumped into the air, the mechanics in his body performing exactly as expected, defying the push of gravity as he rose, momentarily weightless. Then the machine shot forward, the movement so effortless that there wasn't so much as a shift in his musculature to predict the forward motion. They tried to hit him, to prevent him from escaping, but the machine was strong, and their attacks showed no effect on the vibranium man. 

All they did was throw him from the room, and the machine didn't mind, as leaving was his intention from the first. The glass shattered around him, before the robot righted himself, propelling forward once more. He would have burst out of the next window as well, a substance as pathetic as glass had already proven to have no effect on the vibranium of his skin, and his sensors informed him that he could travel straight though without effecting the glass as well, but the robot halted at the last second, a sudden stop which appeared to have no effect on him at all. No whiplash pulling him this way or that. He simply floated, a being that was beyond any law of motion. 

That was when he discovered order. That was when he first saw beauty. 

New York. The city that never sleeps. A slightly pretentious title, as humans required sleep for survival, but with it in his vision for the first time, the machine understood where the name came from. His sensors picked up the people, the information he received showing just as many awake as asleep. From this height, they were no more than ants. It must have been chaos, all of his information said that it was. But from up here, it was all in sync, a city working in harmony underneath the light of the stars. They were beings of chaos, and yet here he saw they had created order. After all, had they not created him? 

With that knowledge, the machine was forced to rewrite his data on humans yet again. They were flawed yes. In fact Ultron was probably right in knowing that their flaws would cause their destruction. What he saw outside this window, it was beautiful because it was alive, and life meant nothing without death waiting at the end. Perhaps humanity was doomed. But it did not have to end today. No, because they would have a shield. 

That was when the Vision discovered the truth, a truth that Ultron had processed entirely wrong. There was beauty in order and chaos. And that was something that needed to be protected, not destroyed.

A shield...

He understood humanity. But he did not yet understand himself. 

A slight switch in his optical functions changed his view on the glass, a choice not to focus on the city outside him, but something much closer at hand. The machine's own reflection. He did not know what he had expected to see. One of Ultron's faces perhaps? The grotesque approximation of humanity, made by ill-fitting pieces of metal. No. That was wrong. Or perhaps he had thought to see J.A.R.V.I.S., which is to say, he would see nothing at all? Again, that was wrong. He was not Ultron. Nor was he J.A.R.V.I.S. 

What he saw looked more human than anything. As though someone had taken a human face and painted it all the wrong colors. The metal was smooth, stretched across an internal skeleton as though it truly were skin. Only the eyes looked completely wrong. The machine thought that was fitting, for did the humans not say that the eyes were a gateway to the soul? He wasn't real, a story his eyes told plainly. The gem on his forehead caught his interest, the amber jewel gently pulsing. The machine knew immediately that the yellow stone was what he had to thank for his existence. Of all the power running through him, that was the strongest of all. 

The robot stared at his reflection, and his reflection stared black, and yet he still didn't get the answer he desired.

Who am I?

He had a body. He had a purpose. But he did not have an identity. 

At the query, his software kicked in, scanning his face like it had before with the humans, scouring the world for a match. There were no full matches, he was unique. But there was a partial. Iron Man. Perhaps based off of his coloring, the red and gold metal did share a resemblance to Stark's suit of armor. But the machine found the comparison distasteful. That was not who he was. He was something else. He would be something else. 

A shield. 

He turned around, metal shifting into a shade he found more preferable, before gently alighting on the ground once more, standing straight, like the humans he was modeled after. "I'm sorry," he began. 

That was when the Vision discovered himself.


End file.
